Clinic of the Cursed

Chapter 11

The next morning, the clinic buzzed with forced normalcy.

Phones rang. Patients checked in. Charts moved. But behind every smile, every clipboard, was tension.

Gwen didn’t tell anyone about the missing syringe—not yet. She needed to be sure.

Abby kept to herself, sunglasses hiding the growing golden sheen in her eyes. Her hands ached. Her hearing was too sharp. She could hear Gwen’s heart rate spike every time someone said her name.

In the break room, Lexy poured coffee with shaky hands. “We all okay?”

Mariel raised an eyebrow. “Define ‘okay.’”

“Still breathing?” Lexy offered with a shrug.

“Barely.”

Angie sat in the corner, quiet. Her eyes followed Abby through the window in the door like a bird watching a snake.

She felt it.

Something was wrong.

Dr. Dedeke pulled Dr. Khan into the hallway.

“We need to talk,” Dedeke said, voice low. “I ran bloodwork. Abby’s markers are… shifting.”

Khan frowned. “Shifting how?”

Dedeke hesitated. “She’s not turning into a full werewolf.”

“Then what?”

“She’s becoming something new.”

That night, Gwen followed the ash trail outside. She carried a charm in one hand, a tranquilizer in the other.

The trail led her to the dumpster.

Then past it.

To the woods.

Something moved ahead—just a shadow at first. Then a flash of fur. And… a whisper.

“Help me…”

Gwen froze.

It was Angie’s voice.

But Angie was inside.

Meanwhile, in the clinic, Abby stood in front of the bathroom mirror, gripping the sink. Her reflection blurred for a second—then shifted.

Her face.

Fangs.

A snarl she didn’t make.

And behind her in the mirror, Harper appeared for just a blink.

“You’re mine now.”

Abby gasped and stumbled back—but when she looked again, the mirror showed only her.

Breathing heavy.

Eyes glowing gold.

Back inside the clinic, Angie stood in the supply room, counting IV kits with robotic precision. Her mind wasn’t on inventory.

It was on her dreams.

Each night since Harper vanished, she’d seen flashes—blood-covered walls, claws dragging along tile, a voice whispering her name from the shadows.

At first, she thought they were nightmares.

Now, she wasn’t sure.

Dr. Khan and Dr. Dedeke had locked themselves in the old records room, piecing together ancient medical texts and dark folklore like a supernatural jigsaw puzzle.

“This symbol,” Khan pointed to a sketch of overlapping runes found under Abby’s desk, “it’s not werewolf. It’s hybrid. A fusion of lycanthropy and something vampiric.”

“Impossible,” Dedeke muttered. “That blood mix doesn’t hold.”

“Unless someone wants it to.”

They both looked at each other.

“What if Harper didn’t fail?” Khan said. “What if Abby is the weapon she was trying to make?”

Gwen returned from the woods, pale and shaken. She found Lexy and pulled her aside.

“There’s something in the forest. It was Angie’s voice.”

Lexy’s eyes widened. “You sure it wasn’t—?”

“She’s still inside,” Gwen said. “I checked.”

Mariel joined them, sensing the shift in the air.

“We’ve got a spy,” she whispered.

“and a possessed one,” Gwen added grimly.

They all looked toward the hallway where Abby now stood, staring through the window like she knew they were talking about her.

She smiled.

But her eyes didn’t.